Prius resale value is plummeting

Resale value is not trade in value. Dealers in everything will usually give less for a trade in than that item's current resale(wholesale/retail?) value. Take cameras, the dealer will usually offer about half used retail for a trade in.

Maybe, like a '65 Mustang, you could park it for 40 years and hope it will become a nostalgia item.

Or instead of a Prius, pick up one of those behemoth trucks or SUVs the car makers are pushing now. Wait a couple of years and it's value plummets when gas is up to about five bux, try and unload it, then sue the maker 'cause no one wants it.

Better yet, just become a lawyer. They're the ones who make out in these things anyway.

 

Kelly BB knocks any rebates off the trade value of the car--for the life of the car.

I doubt Prius has dropped in resale value due to recent events. Hybrids right now are not a hot item due to the stable price of gas. Somebody has taken the sails out of oil futures speculation--for now, anyways. More likely, hybrids are depreciating like any other car right now--and that's what the Prius is doing.

I understand there will be a few more hybrids on the market this fall. There has to be a transition to hybrids when the new EPA mpg rules become effective in 2015. Carbon emissions laws will also accelerate a move to hybrids.

I see a lot of "the sky is falling" threads around here lately. I think Toyota will drive through all the hot air just fine in due time.

 

Save up until you can pay cash. Borrowing to buy a new car is just giving money to the lender. Selling or trading a Toyota right now would be silly.

 

Dealers will tell you anything to buy low and sell high. They're not in business to give out money or save it for you. They could blame the bad press now, but in 6 months blame sun spots.

 

Ain't that the truth. If the value of your trade in has fallen in half then the value of their new car should have fallen this much. I love to see them sqirm when we apply their logic!

 

I just knew the end of the sunspot holiday we've been having these last few years was going to be a problem....

 

Firstly, I hope that in using the term faithfully you acknowledge that it is a mistake to trust a dealer, let alone a Toyota dealer. Unless my brother worked in there, I would consider a Toyota dealer a thief by default. Their preferential treatment is generally to rip you off more than any new customer who may or may not return.

Secondly, I don't understand the reason anyone would sell their car to a dealer unless they urgently needed money. If you want to test the value of your Prius put it up on craigslist, autotrader and cars.com for a decent amount of USD.

Thirdly, the Prius resale value drop is unfortunate and there is nothing we can do about it. Luckily, I still like my '07 Prius.

My only concern is whether to get extended warranty or not...

 

Well as others have pointed out, I did not buy the Prius as an investment. If I had, I would have "Mothballed" her 18,705 miles ago.
I do however drive less than 10k a year, so I will be taking full advantage of the 7/70k warranty!
At that point I will be buying the NEW 2015 Prius!

I would think that they would have the current set of problems resolved by then. Of course, I will be looking forward with great anticipation at what new set of problems they might come up with by then!!

 

All True.

If you buy a vehicle to use it then it's value is how you use it. One thing is certain the value is going to be less and less over time and miles.


However as Rokeby stated taking a snapshot of a movie that will run for 10 yrs is not at all reflective of anything. He's absolutely correct about Prius values being directly related to the price of fuel. We as a dealer actually purchased 50 USED 2007 Prius' in summer of '08 for $4000 over the original MSRP of those 2007's. This was the wholesale auction price. Why? Because that's what the market was at that time. We paid $27000 at auction for 50 Base models ( lower than package 2 ) when the original MSRP was $22000+ to Hertz, Avis, Enterprise, etc. We sold them all too. Why? That's what the market was.

Come summer revisit the issue again. If for some reason gas goes to $6 / gal over the next three yrs current owners will be able to name their price. That also will be a snapshot of a movie that will run for 10 yrs.

 

Here is a rough rule of thumb on most Toyotas and Hondas. They depreciate about 10% per year on a retail basis. If your Prius was $27000 on the sticker back in 2007 then you, or the dealer, should expect to sell it for $15000-$17000 since the '11s will be out soon.

The dealer howver has to recondition it and make a profit. Realistically to buy it, clean it up, finance it and sell it at a profit for about $16000 he has to buy it for about $13000 or less. That's simply business. $11000 sounds like a lowball offer but then other factors might be intruding.

When Toyota brought out the Gen 3's the prices of the equivalent Gen 3's were lowered anywhere from $1000 to $2000 as compared to the Gen 2's. This was to ensure that the Insight II would be stomped to dust. It was, strategy successful. However by lowering the prices of the Gen 3's they also gave our Gen 2's a shot in the teeth by the same amount!!!

 

This is what that 'loss of value' lawsuit is about.
Same happened to GM with all the rollovers a number of years ago. They lost.

 

Yes, but cars are not investments and, except for collectibles ones they all go down in price over time.

 

If that house is also not an investment, I guess you would be fine if it dropped in price over the long run instead of going up?
Call me in 20 years and I will make you a good offer on that used house

 

If totaled, how would an insurance company determine the money they gave me back?

 

By the cost to replace.

 

The sunspot holiday is over. They are back at work.

SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids

 

I disagree, take a look back at the Audi 5000 fiasco of unintended acceleration. Even though the problem was proven to be 100% operator by the government, the cars included in the suspected problem never did recover resale value. I owned one and i got hurt financially even though i kept the car quite a while. Once resale values go down due to something like that the damage is permanent.

In this case it is even a bigger media frenzy then it was for Audi and Toyota has been hit as a whole by it , not just one model, you can bet the damage will take a long long time to fade away and resale values will suffer for several years.

 

As the song says, "love the one your with, honey ..."

 

More importantly than NHTSA is the results of all of those court cases- Audi won them all. But as was noted, I buy a car for transportation and my enjoyment. A car isn't an investment, it is an expense. Even the restoration planned for my 63 Pontiac is going to cost more than its worth. Life is just not fair.

As for houses, my mother's house is worth half what it was in 2006. To recover that loss will take 20 years if prices rise an average of 3.5%. At 2% a year, it would take 35 years.

 

I have called a major ins company and they said they pay around the trade in value.